From the Editor’s Desk

If you told me five years ago that I’d end up pursuing an MBA, I would have laughed. Then cried. Then cried again at the realization that there would be accounting exams. My parents, on the other hand, probably saw this coming from a mile away. Both MBA grads themselves (yes, Columbia and Booth, so I never really had a chance), they were playing the long game. I was the only one who didn’t know I had been cast as the protagonist of a 24-year prequel titled Business School: Inevitability.

Part of my skepticism came from the fact that I grew up doing only creative things. My entire childhood was one long montage of backyard film shoots, half-finished short stories, and heartwrenching ballads written years before I even had my first boyfriend. That was the world I understood. I wasn’t the kid who built models for fun; I was the one who couldn’t sit through a 45-minute class without rewriting the ending of Titanic in my head.

And because of that, I was certain that school ended after college. I took one statistics class at Columbia and spent most of it confused, convinced that numbers were simply not my language. An MBA program, in my mind, was tedious and quantitative and filled with people who color-coded their Excel tabs for fun. I pictured a world of charts and models and equations, none of which felt like mine.

So naturally, the universe decided to test that certainty. During my senior year of college, I interned at CNN on a show called Quest Means Business and, to my shock and/or horror, found myself just as captivated by central banks and market reactions as I was by movies. That curiosity led me to my next internship at CNBC, where I helped cover the last hour of the trading day from the New York Stock Exchange. In that buzzing newsroom, I realized that the world of business, which I once viewed as dry and hyper-technical, was actually rich in narrative, tension, and stakes.

Fast forward to today as I look ahead to my final semester at HBS, it feels surreal that this unforeseen path has become my reality, complete with an investment banking internship this past summer that I loved. Nothing humbles you quite like realizing you’ve spent your entire life saying you’re “not a numbers person,” only to wake up one day excited about EBITDA margins.

That realization has become my first lesson from this journey.

Lesson One: Never Rule Anything Out

The things we resist most strongly often end up surprising us. If I had stayed closed off to CNN because I thought stocks were boring or dismissed HBS because I thought business school was incompatible with creativity, I would have shut myself off from experiences that changed my life. Openness, I’ve learned, is not weakness; it’s wisdom. Sometimes the thing you fear is simply the thing you have not yet met.

Lesson Two: Creativity Goes Where You Take It

Before coming to HBS, I was worried that I would have to set the creative part of myself aside. However, over the past year, I’ve realized that creativity isn’t a place; it’s a practice. And nowhere has that been more apparent than in my time leading The Harbus.

When I became Editor-in-Chief in January, my guiding principle was simple: The Harbus should be the place where people can say what they actually mean. Not what’s safe or what’s expected but what they truly believe. Creativity, at its core, is about deviating from the script. It’s about adding color to the margins. It’s about risk.

That ethos shaped every editorial call this year. I never wanted to reject a piece solely because it felt sharp or provocative, and I understood that controversial pieces might receive backlash. The people-pleaser in me had to accept that it is impossible to make everyone happy at the same time and that there will always be someone who finds fault with my decisions. But the world is already full of places where people self-censor, and especially in today’s landscape, I firmly believe a student newspaper shouldn’t be one of them.

This month’s issue reflects that same commitment to curiosity and candor. Across genres, our writers examine the quirks, tensions, and questions that define our lives on campus. We have satire that pokes at the culture of overcommitment and performance on campus, pieces that explore our complicated relationship with money and ambition, and reflections on how passions shift as our identities evolve. Other contributions explore the broader world we’re preparing to enter, including essays on AI and the future of work, ruminations on what capitalism must provide to remain equitable, pieces on how generalists can thrive amid hyper-specialization, and discussions on how retailers are experimenting during the holidays to better understand consumer behavior.

Taken together, these pieces ask us what it means to learn, adapt, aspire, and belong. They challenge the assumptions we carry with us and reflect the willingness of our community to articulate ideas that aren’t always simple, comfortable, or unanimous.

And that brings me to my final lesson.

Lesson Three: Let Your Voice Matter

If there’s anything I’ve learned from leading The Harbus, it’s that people don’t crave perfection; they crave authenticity. My hope at the start of this year was to create a place where people could bring the parts of themselves that don’t fit neatly into class discussions or networking conversations. A place to test ideas, prod contradictions, and admit when we’re confused. I learned quickly that the most compelling pieces aren’t always the most polished; they’re the ones that feel human and take the biggest risks.

As I complete my final issue as Editor-in-Chief, I want to express my deepest gratitude to the writers who trusted me with their stories; the editors who elevated every piece; and the readers who engaged, debated, and cared. This community is remarkable not because we all share the same views but because we keep choosing to stay in dialogue even when we don’t.

In the new year, The Harbus will be led by Alex Qi (MBA ‘27) as Editor-in-Chief and Pranav Bharadwaj (MBA ‘27) as CEO. I have had the pleasure of working with both of them this semester and could not imagine two more thoughtful, grounded, and prepared people to guide this publication into its next chapter.

The Harbus has always been bigger than any one editor, and I’m excited to see where it goes next.

Michelle Yu (MBA '26) is originally from Cresskill, New Jersey. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Film and Media Studies and worked for CNBC, NBC News, and CNN prior to HBS, along with projects for HBO, Showtime, Oxygen, and Spectrum. Outside of work, she is a 2x marathon runner, American Songwriting Awards winner, and filmmaker whose work has screened at the Tribeca Film Festival and AMC's Empire Theaters in Times Square.